6 Reasons to Invest in a Slow Cooker

After a long day at work or on campus you likely want to just get into comfy clothes and relax a bit. But then there’s the problem of dinner. Do you cook? Do you order in? Do you scrape together leftovers? It’s always a hassle to decide and put in the effort. With a slow cooker, you can just come home, take out the food and eat it while doing whatever.

Easy and Quick to Prepare

Chopping up ingredients the night before

Slow cookers don’t just displace the work that goes into meal-prep, they greatly reduce it. If, like me, you aren’t much of a morning person, you can use spare time (10-20 minutes) the night before to get everything ready so the next day all you do is throw in the ingredients and turn it on.

Wide Range of Recipes

Apple spice cake made in a slow cooker

Meals you can make in a slow cooker aren’t limited to just stews, soups and roasts. You’d be surprised at the amount of things you can make! Examples include paella, apple spice cake, shepherd’s pie and beer-braised corned beef. You can find a ton of slow cooker specific cookbooks at the book store. I am currently using Canadian Living’s New Slow Cooker Favourites.

Large Meals

When you make a recipe with your slow cooker you aren’t cooking for just one meal or one day; slow cooker recipes typically make 4 to 10 servings. This leaves you with plenty of leftovers and takes even more time away from cooking during your busy week.

Hands-Free Cooking

Slow cooker ready to go

With the food being being prepared by the slow cooker, you’re free to do whatever you wish while it’s cooking, without worrying about it burning. Need to go out of the house to run some errands? No problem. Want to study at the library all day? Go ahead. Planning on taking the day to relax? Let the food take care of itself.